Tom Moore by
Thomas Fitzpatrick [?].
Stone.
Belfast Place, Belfast. Text and photograph by Philip V. Allingham 2006.
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Of the figures depicted on the stone building on Linen Hall and Donegall Square North, only Thomas Moore (1779-1852) is actually Irish, although he was a native of Dublin rather than Belfast. Although he was a published poet, it is for his music that he is remembered, chiefly Irish Melodies (1807-34), The Two-Penny Post-bag (1812), and the famous and popular Lalla Rookh (1817), for which Longmans paid him 3000 guineas. He is said to have had a generous contempt for money and paid insufficient attention to his financial dealings, which permitted his Bermuda deputy to embezzle £6000, sending him into exile. Returning in 1819, he spent the last thirty years of his life in Wiltshire, during which period he wrote biographies of Sheridan and Byron, a novel, The Epicurean (1823), and numerous other works, as well as musical pieces.